Thursday, October 4, 2007

A Choice of Blades

However how exactly do you rationalize using [Sun Eater] situationally vs your Crystalforged Sword or a person with a Continium Blade when you have a threat lead. Just trying to understand the Paladin mechanics of it. Is the avoidance and mitigation more important when you have a large threat vs the spell damage that you can do with the CrystalForged or Continium Blade? - Galo

Okay. So 95% of the time, it's me and my trusty CrystalForge Sword enchanted with Spell Power (+40 spell damage). I leave a little trail of pixie dust wherever I go.

Sun Eater is not an aggro generating weapon. The high dodge, stamina and fast speed make it a good choice to defend yourself though.

There are situations where you are going to have a huge threat lead. In the High King Maulgar fight, Maulgar is DPS'ed after 4 other mobs have been killed. The tank gets a lot of quality time alone with Maulgar to get him good and pissed off. On Prince Malchezaar, specfically in Phase 2, he's hitting you so fast that Holy Shield threat is far out pacing anything else you can do.

Both of those guys hit like a Frieght Train. Prince can do three attacks that take 12-14k off your life in 1 second. No healer can react to that. High King can line up an Arcing Smash with a regular melee and goodbye 18k hit points. You really need to fully avoid once of those hits via a dodge, miss or parry.

So you are way ahead on threat, but you've got to survive. The extra dodge and defense on the Sun Eater is really nice to have. In addition if you've sunk the gold to put Mongoose on it, your straight mitigation (attacks do no damage to you) goes up even higher.

Lastly, always wear the Sun Eater when you are in Shattrah. It seems everyone just can't miss that you're a -Tank- type when you're carrying this blade at your side. Warriors raise an eyebrow, other paladins look at you wierd and people asks you more politely if you'd be willing to heal.